rm and excitement, in consequence of the
expected meeting. The handbill convening the meeting had been freely
circulated, calling upon the labouring population to "come in
thousands" and assemble opposite the new _Poor-law Prison_! This
address was signed by the Rev. H. F. Maberley. The Magistrates of the
division issued a caution to the people, and this was placarded about
the neighbouring villages, warning all persons that if any breach of
the peace took place, every individual present would be liable to be
apprehended and punished according to law. As a further precaution, "A
most efficient body of police" was sent down under the command of
Inspector Harpur, as stated above.

Meanwhile there was, we are told, by the old chronicler, [_Cambridge
Chronicle_] "a deep feeling among the upper and middle classes of
society, that imminent danger to the public peace was to be apprehended
from a meeting of the labourers called to petition on the subject of
the new Poor-law opposite a new unfinished house of considerable
extent, by a handbill characterising the new building as a new Poor-law
Prison, and therefore no one chose to interfere in the discussions of
the meeting."

"The labourers, with a large proportion of women and children,
continued to arrive in wagons, carts, and on foot, all through the
morning, and they sat down opposite the Workhouse on the road side."
Being questioned they said "They expected they had come to pull down
the Workhouse, but they were waiting for the gentlemen who called the
meeting"! They "appeared to consider their object one of ordinary
duty, as they spoke without excitement or intemperate language." Soon
after 12 o'clock the clerical champion, Rev. H. F. Maberley, arrived,
accompanied by the Rev. T. Clack, curate of Guilden Morden, and they
soon commenced the great business of demonstrating, but possibly from
hearing of the Home Secretary's reinforcements, they assembled the
people on the Heath a distance of a quarter-of-a-mile from the
Workhouse, and Mr. Clack opened the proceedings in a jubilant strain
with a Scriptural quotation, "This is the day the Lord has made; we
will rejoice and be glad in it." Some 1,500 persons, of whom at least
two-thirds were said to have been {173} women and children, listened to
the harangue "with listless indifference," possibly because words did
not pull the building down. The Rev. H. F. Maberley declaimed against
separating old men and women and th